Dressed to kill

The world of laptops has seen major churn over the past few years, with chromebooks, tablets and even large smartphones beginning to eat into their market share by offering similar functionality. In the midst of this ongoing storm, Dell’s XPS laptops, the crown jewel in the company’s personal portfolio, have managed to keep themselves relevant with sleek design and timely hardware upgrades.

With the 2018 XPS, Dell has taken a leap of faith, deciding to drop some relevant I/O ports and double down on design. It is a sign of the changing times, but will it attain cult status or be abandoned for trying too hard? We got our hands on the XPS 13 9370 to find out.

Quite the looker

The XPS laptops have been known to make a style statement, and the small XPS 13 is no exception. Having shed some weight and dressed in a striking rose gold number, this is a device guaranteed to turn a few heads when slid out of a bag or placed on a table. Weighing barely more than a kilogram, carrying around this laptop is no hassle, and its diminutive size makes it easy to fit into most small bags.

The sides of the laptop are white, as is the keyboard. Missing on the sides are full-size USB ports, a card reader and even a proprietary charging port, all of which Dell has abandoned in favour of USB Type-C. The XPS charges through a USB-C port, of which there are three, two of which are Thunderbolt 3 ports (you get a USB-C to regular USB-A adapter in the box). There is still a microSD card reader, which productivity enthusiasts might frown upon, and a headphone jack. The XPS gets side-firing speakers, and a handy little battery indicator to let you know if you need a quick top-up without having to open the lid and check.

When you do open that lid, a soothing expanse of alpine white greets you, made of woven glass fibre, giving the palmrest a luxurious, textured feel. The backlit keyboard offers 1.3mm of key travel, and we found that typing was a comfortable affair, helping us belt out a couple of stories in quick succession with minimal fatigue. The trackpad is large, and supports multi-touch, making gesture-based UI navigation in Windows 10 a breeze. Dell also includes an infrared-aided webcam that helps with face recognition and logging in through Windows Hello. However, the placement of the camera below the screen makes Skype calls a little awkward as you constantly try and make sure the person at the other end is not subjected to the view up your nose.

Quite the spec sheet

The XPS may be small enough to fit into a day bag, but its size is no measure of its power. The 13-inch screen on the variant we tested boasted 4K resolution, impressive for a screen so small. Combined with an almost bezel-less display and tack sharp colour reproduction, the screen transports you into another world, when fed high-quality 4K content. The graphics solution is Intel’s UHD 620 on-board setup, which will not help with high-performance gaming, but handled 4K playback just fine. With 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD backing up the Core i7-8550u, the XPS has no problem keeping up with day-to-day productivity tasks. Battery life was also impressive, with us consistently getting around eight hours of moderate use out of it. If longer endurance is a priority, the XPS is also available with a 1080p non-touch display that shaves a significant chunk off the price and brings more endurance.

Is it worth buying?

That depends on how much you are willing to shell out. The fully-specced XPS 13 we tested starts at ₹1,65,990 on Dell’s website, taking it into Macbook Pro territory. If settling for a non-touch Full HD display, a Core i5 and half the RAM and storage is an acceptable compromise, the base variant starts at ₹97,990, and the middle variant offers a little of both, with the only major downgrade being the screen. This line-up gives the XPS enough versatility for those willing to pay for it, and the top-end XPS does offer enough in style and substance to be a solid Macbook alternative.

Long story short, Dell has delivered a product that, while not free of compromise, has plenty going for it. However, this does not mean it can rest easy, as manufacturers like Huawei are charging in from the horizon with excellent products like the MateBook X Pro. The XPS has reinvented itself again to stay near the top of the premium notebook mountain, but it still needs to watch its back.